Simon Coveney’s John Hume European ‘Spirit of Peace’ Lecture: Time to remind ourselves of values, humility and politics of John Hume

I want to thank the Hume family, The John and Pat Hume Foundation and the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) for the invitation to be here. This is the fourth edition of the ‘European Spirit of Peace’ Lecture. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that next august will be the fifth anniversary of John’s passing.

Some years ago, I was walking to a meeting across Brussels on a summer evening, along one of the many narrow streets between the Grand Place and the European Parliament.

To my surprise, I saw a face I recognised walking quite frantically towards me. His face anxious and furrowed, glasses loose at the end of his nose, sweat dripping from his forehead; jacket in hand, tie loosened, his shirt wet through to the skin.

It was John Hume, I couldn’t believe it, a hero of mine, one of the reasons I committed to entering politics in the first instance, and a key reason I entered European politics.

I could see he was in distress, so I ran over, stood in front of him, stopping his stride. He look up at me a little irritated and said ‘do I know you?’

I replied ‘probably not, but I certainly know you’, I asked him if I could help. He paused, looked at me again, he told me he was lost, lost in a city he knew well, unable to find his hotel despite having the address written down, he was due to give a lecture, he was already an hour late.

He’d been walking for hours.

What started that evening as an unexpected encounter, with a then vulnerable John Hume, developed into a conversation that hasn’t left me.

He told me that human beings need one another, particularly when we are weak or lost. He told me about his belief in the European Union, and why he was in Brussels that day.

He told me that story that I’d heard him recount on media, but it somehow sounded more powerful in person, of arriving in Strasbourg for the first time in 1979, walking across the bridge from Strasbourg in France to Kehl in Germany, casting his mind back to what it must have been like 30 years earlier, at the end of the Second World War.

It had been the worst half century in the history of mankind, 50 million people had killed each other. But 30 years later, a bridge had been built, a new union created at the heart of a new Europe to guarantee peace and an absence of war.

It was like he wanted to impart wisdom to a stranger he’d just met. I’m told by those close to him that he did that a lot, but on that day I felt special.

He told me the European Union is the best example in history of conflict resolution and he outlined the principles at the heart of it, that he said should be sent to every war torn region.

There was no forgetting for John Hume when it came to the principles of peace making. As true for him in Northern Ireland as in the EU.

Three Principles:

• A respect for difference, because it’s an ‘accident of birth’.
• The need to build institutions that respect difference, like the EU had done.
• A commitment to a healing process that involves working together for common interests – ‘spilling their sweat and not their blood’.

We walked together for nearly thirty minutes to reach his hotel. He didn’t ask my name, but simply trusted me to help him, guide him to where he needed to be; while he returned the favour with life lessons on tolerance and generosity.

It didn’t really matter how many times you heard John Hume recount the same stories, in person or on screen, reinforcing the same principles.

The authenticity and truth remained powerful, as it does today.

I remember the conversation was so compelling for me that when we arrived at his hotel we keep walking together to the elevator and all the way up to his room.

As he opened the door he looked back at me, still a little dishevelled but now relaxed, he thanked me for my help. He smiled and said ‘I know who you are you know, I remember meeting you in Cork. Good luck for the future’.

That conversation, that focus on conflict and how to bring it to an end, seems more relevant today than ever.

You get the sense that much of the world has lost it way, with tension and conflict rising, forgetting what should be familiar lessons of history.

Despite knowing what it takes to prevent and end conflict the path we are on is surely pointing in the wrong direction globally.

The international community has somehow facilitated the emergence of another dark period of human history, including on our own continent, where escalating conflict has the capacity to spiral into something even more brutal and savage than what we’ve already witnessed in recent years.

Ireland, through a new government in 2025, needs to think very carefully about how to position ourselves; to protect our own interests, and to maximise our influence on global affairs as a force for good and a credible voice for peace.

Europe is at war again. The horrors of Russian aggression in Ukraine have fundamentally changed European politics.

Poland is preparing for conflict, building a defensive wall, called it’s ‘Eastern Shield’ on its borders with Russia and Belarus. It will spend $2.5 billon on 7500kms of fortifications, equipped with warning and detection systems, sophisticated logistics bases, anti-drone systems and anti-tank ditches.

Polish PM Donald Tusk said: “Everything we do here on the border is aimed at deterring and discouraging a potential aggressor, so it’s really an investment in peace. This is the largest project of its type in the history of Europe after 1945.”

Sweden too is preparing and has begun sending millions of pamphlets advising residents how to prepare for possible war. Finland likewise has launched a new public information website to the same effect.

Defence spending in virtually every EU country has increased significantly and NATO Ministers are meeting as regularly as EU foreign Ministers these days in Brussels.

Power and influence in our Union has shifted to the East as the historical and current threat from Russia has become central to so much of EU thinking and decision making.

Ireland needs to get real on the security and defence debate within the EU, if we are to remain credible and influential, not only on the defence issues, but on many other political choices too.

If I’m honest, the debate on defence in Ireland is simply not in tune with the realities facing Europe today. We are outliers and some would describe us as freeloaders.

Getting things done in the EU is about alliances, it’s about trust and solidarity, as we found out during the Brexit years when our vulnerabilities were exposed and we needed the support of others.

We need to be much more plugged in to the political and security fears being felt by many of our fellow EU member states. Solidarity needs to mean something beyond words to be real.

Our purpose of course must be focused on peace not war. But to be heard, and be anyway influential within the EU, serious engagement on common security and defence issues is imperative. Ireland must play our part.

Two weeks ago I was with the Ambassador of Japan to Ireland to open an extraordinary exhibition reflecting on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 80 years on.

On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, resulting in the immediate deaths of 80,000 people; 140,000 by the end of that year. Three days later, a bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing 40,000 immediately, 70,000 by the end of 1945.

The catastrophic consequences altered the very fabric of society in Japan.

In our current geopolitical climate, particularly in Ukraine and across the Middle East, historic lessons should remain very current.

Escalating conflicts, involving military superpowers, have the potential to spiral into situations where the use of nuclear weapons is again being threatened.

The line between conventional warfare and a justification for nuclear confrontation can be blurred when a country’s core interests are threatened, whether that’s perceived, manufactured or real.

Ireland has limited influence on the outcomes of large scale conflict, but we must use that influence wisely to prioritise dialogue over escalating confrontation.

We must be part of international efforts, within and outside the EU, to face down those who seek ‘total victories’ through force of arms, allowing fear and aggression to dictate actions.

We should be open to using whatever tools are available to us: International Courts, UN bodies, EU institutions, bilateral relations, partnerships, trade tools when possible.

We must ‘respect difference’, but also insist on accountability and the protections of international law, even if it means uncomfortable truths.

Today history is repeating itself, hundreds of thousands dead in nearly three years of war in Ukraine. One aggressor, trying to force its will on another country fighting for it’s very survival.

In the Middle East a war that started with a savage terrorist attack, has become an indelible stain on the international community’s ability to protect civilians from a brutal war in Gaza and Lebanon.

In Syria too, conflict is escalating again, with outside influence funding and arming warring parties in the North West. The civil war in Sudan continues to kill tens of thousands, again supported and funded by outside interests, and is largely ignored by international power brokers.

The human cost of these conflicts is shocking.

Take this fact into your minds-eye: the most frequent age of people killed in the war in Gaza is below 9 years of age. I’m sure it was never the intention, but this has been a war on children.

On average, almost 50 children every single day for the last year, have been killed. This is what human beings are capable of when conflict goes unchallenged, when ‘difference is not respected’, when ‘international institutions don’t work’ and when there is ‘no common purpose’.

Diagnosing the problem is a lot easier than finding pathways to peace.

The politics of conflicts around the world is complex, added to that is the reality that the truth is the first casualty in every war.

But Ireland is and must continue to form positions on world affairs, based of strategic alliances and EU principles, but also on the basis of international law and the UN charter – things that we thought we could take for granted, at least in the democratic world, but not so today.

That is how the Irish voice remains credible, consistent and I hope respected.

Multilateralism is supposed to be the protector of small nations. The UN has not covered itself in glory in recent years, failing to prevent multiple conflicts or protect civilians.

But it is still the only multilateral institution that can coordinate global responses and protections, and we must speak up when the UN is being undermined and discredited for political or propaganda purposes, often by countries that should know better.

I fear we will see a more polarised, transactional, divided geopolitical landscape in the months and years to come. Ireland will be pressurised to make choices linked to other countries agendas.

We need to make our own choices, on the basis of a foreign policy that has served us well, committed to the EU and UN, consistent with international law, signed conventions and international court rulings.

In other words we must push against the forces of populism, corrosive nationalism, promises of quick fixes based on emotion and fear – the kind of politics that embeds and weaponizes difference, making conflict inevitable.

Geopolitical tension and a more polarised world threatens Ireland’s economic wellbeing too.

We share a fantastic but small globalised country, with reach into over a hundred markets around the world. Our trade is now valued at over a trillion dollars, with a healthy trade surplus.

We’ve thrived on the back of an outward looking focus in a world that embraced globalisation, ‘Ireland - an Island at the centre of the World’ has been our template, inviting the best and largest companies in the world to make Ireland their home for global innovation.

More than 1800 multinationals employing over 620,000 today, directly or indirectly, that’s more than a quarter of the workforce. We continue to shape our economic model in the image of global trends; in tech, in healthcare, in financial services, engineering, in energy and nutrition - Irish and international companies, free to trade serving global markets.

So where are the storm clouds and why do we need to rethink economic resilience as well as solutions to conflict?

Many of us are closely watching the taking shape of a new Trump administration with curiosity, knowing that a new policy direction matters for Irish interests.

Some Key Picks of note for Ireland:

Secretary of State, Senator Marco Rubio.

Able politician

Very hawkish on China, Iran and Middle East.

Voted against last Aid package for Ukraine and talks of the need for difficult choices to end the war there.

Wants to prioritise the Indo-Pacific

“The future of the 21st century is going to largely be defined by what happens in the Indo-Pacific,” he says.

So where to, on transatlantic relationship?

Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent.

Wall Street Financier, seen by many as less radical than others.

Talks about a “New golden age with de-regulation, low cost energy and low taxes”

Focus on ending trade imbalances, i.e.. trade deficits.

Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick.

The man to spearhead the administrations ‘tariff and trade agenda’. He’s already been busy, threatening significant tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China.

Has specifically spoken about ‘Ireland running a trade surplus as Americas expense’.

Energy Secretary, Chris Wright.

An Oil and gas industry executive.

Will fulfil the campaign promise of ‘drill baby drill’ to maximise US oil and gas production.

He’s recently posted a video saying ‘there is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either’.

So Ireland must prepare for a friend in the White House who sees the world very differently to us. The economists, environmentalists and commentators who are raising alarm bells should be listened to!

Our Government will need to be politically streetwise, maintain strong relationships in Washington and across other US States. We have many friends in the US, in both Parties, and we need to keep them, but we are in for a period of potentially very serious disruption to trans-Atlantic trade and global trade more widely.

So we need to be planning now for how the most globalised economy in Europe positions itself, domestically from an economic perspective, and internationally between Europe and the US in a world where globalisation is clearly in retreat.

We should distinguish too between the policies of the White House and that of many US Multinationals, particularly on commitments to energy transition, Net Zero and globalisation.

The EU and Ireland should also be strengthening trade, security and political relations with our closest neighbour in the UK, in the context of very different policy direction on both sides of the Atlantic.

There are opportunities for Ireland, particularly in attracting FDI looking for political certainly, stability and predictability. I was relieved the electorate agreed to maintain that stability last Friday.

2024 has been a year of elections around the world. Around half of the worlds population across 70 countries have held national elections. The results mean a deeply divided global outlook on so many of the worlds key drivers and disruptors. The direction of travel is anything but clear.

For a globalised connected Island like Ireland we need to protect what we’ve built, but also be agile and willing to adapt to new realities.

Let’s not forget what’s served us well: EU membership, a deep commitment to multilateralism, a willingness to call out breaches of international law and an insistence on accountability without double standards, and a constant focus on dialog, compromise and peace building.

It's time to remind ourselves of the values, humility and politics of John Hume.